Colorado doctor discusses importance of blood donation among LGBTQ+ community for World Blood Donor Day, Pride Month
World Blood Donor Day is this weekend. Every year, on June 14, the day is a global tribute to the millions of voluntary, unpaid blood donors who give others a second chance at life.
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. A single blood donation can save up to three lives.
This Pride month, a Colorado doctor stopped by the CBS Colorado studio to discuss the importance of the day, along with increased access to donation for the LGBTQ+ community with First at 4 Anchor Mekialaya White.
"We know the LGBTQ+ community has been prohibited in the past from donating, but this is changing, thankfully. Why is that?" White asked Dr. Amy Schmidt, HCA HealthONE's Director of Blood Banking and Transfusion Services at Presbyterian/St. Luke's.
"The history dates back to the advent of HIV. When HIV first was discovered, we didn't really know how it was spread ... so we kind of created a huge stop and penalized an entire population," Schmidt said.
"What we have now is individualized questionnaires so you are evaluated independent of your gender and independent of your sexual orientation. So each person is evaluated on the same status, regardless of whatever answer you have for the questionnaire."
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